Unforgettable Aussie Commonwealth Games moments

There’s nothing like the atmosphere of a home crowd, and in April next year, you'll have the chance to witness Australia’s best track and field athletes fight for gold when the Gold Coast plays host to the 2018 Commonwealth Games.

One of the biggest dates on the athletics calendar, the Commonwealth Games has a long and proud history down under, with the 2018 Games marking the fifth time Australia has hosted the multi-sport competition (known as the Empire Games prior to 1966). Sydney in 1938, Perth in 1962, Brisbane in 1982, Melbourne in 2006 and Gold Coast in 2018.

To celebrate the opening of the official ballot for tickets we thought we’d reminisce on eight unforgettable Australian Commonwealth Games moments on home soil.

Decima Norman bags five gold medals

A pioneer of women’s athletics not only in Western Australia but nationwide, Clara ‘Decima’ Norman’s five-gold-medal haul at the 1938 British Empire Games in Sydney remains the most successful Australian athletics performance at a single games.

With all three runs on the same day, Norman was undefeated through the heats, semi-finals and finals of the 100yd dash, to take her first gold of the Games in a time of 11.1 – just 1/10 of a second outside the world record at the time.

Norman next ran the final 110yds leg on the victorious Australian 660yds medal relay team to take her second gold medal.

Norman then took to her less-favoured event, the broad jump (long jump). Norman’s fourth attempt equalled the Australian record, and with the gold medal practically hers already, leaped an astounding PB of 19 feet 0¼ inches (5.80m) to smash the Empire record.

The next day, Norman woke with a head cold, but was still good enough to lead an Australian sweep of the 220yds medals in front of Jean Coleman and Eileen Wearne in 24.7 seconds.

Both Coleman and Wearne were joined by Norman in the three-woman relay team that won the 110-220-110yds relay to cap off a truly remarkable Games campaign by the 28-year-old star athlete.

Young Pam Kilborn bursts on the scene

Retiring with six Commonwealth Games gold medals alongside a silver from Mexico City 1968 and bronze from Tokyo 1964, Pam Ryan (nee Kilborn) began her international success at 23-years-old in front of a home crowd at the 1962 Perth Commonwealth Games.

From humble beginnings at University High School in Melbourne, Kilborn started hurdling, jumping and sprinting locally at Victorian interstate competitions before heading to her first national championships in 1960 where she had moderate success.

With luck, Kilborn was selected to represent the green and gold at the 1962 Perth Commonwealth Games in both the 80m hurdles and long jump.

Up against the joint 80m hurdles world record holder Betty Moore from England (who was actually Australian born), Kilborn made the most of the difficult conditions to take gold easily in a time of 10.9 seconds, ahead of Moore’s 11.3 seconds in silver.

In the long jump, Kilborn again rose to the occasion, beating Olympian and fellow Australian Helen Frith by just three centimetres with a jump of 20 feet 6¾ inches (6.27m). Australian teammate Janet Knee was in bronze. Remarkably, the Australians took the top four positions in the women’s long jump of the 10 competitors.

Boyle caps off Commonwealth Games career with 9^th medal

Having already won three Olympic silver medals alongside her seven Commonwealth Games medals you could’ve excused Raelene Boyle for resting on her laurels. Alas it was the lure of a home Games that persuaded the Victorian sprint champion to have one last shot at Commonwealth Games gold.

At 31 years of age, Boyle ran the 400m and 4x400m at the 1982 Brisbane Commonwealth Games – the first time she had attempted the one-lap distance at a major championships (Boyle did, however, win 400m gold at both the 1979-1980 and 1981-1982 national championships).

Moving through in second place in both the heats and semi-finals of the individual competition, Boyle saved her best to last, riding the ear-deafening wave of home support to win gold comfortably in a time 51.97 seconds.

On the final day of competition, Boyle was the anchoring leg in the women’s 4x400m. The thunderous roar inside QE II Stadium pushed Boyle up alongside Canada’s Angella Taylor that resulted in a photo finish, and eventually, the visiting team taking the gold.

Although it wasn’t the perfect finish she was after, the silver medal Boyle shared with Leann Evans, Denise Boyd and Debbie Flintoff was her ninth in total and bookended a remarkable career by one of Australia’s greatest ever female athletes.

Kerryn McCann’s emotional sprint finish

It was ‘the’ moment of the Melbourne 2006 Commonwealth Games.

For 42 gruelling kilometres, Australian distance runner Kerryn McCann was locked in a tight tussle with Kenya’s Hellen Cherono Koskei, until the final 200 metres when McCann kicked clear and won gold in one of the most cherished memories in Australian athletics.

The course looped around Melbourne’s suburbs before leading into the mighty MCG, where over 75,000 fans lifted McCann to an emotional victory by just two seconds.

With the lead changing six times in the final two kilometres, it was anyone’s race, but McCann, the reigning Commonwealth champion from 2002, used her wealth of experience and the deafening roar of the home crowd to her advantage to pull clear and take Commonwealth Games gold in the most remarkable of circumstances.

Steffensen the underdog takes gold

Heading into the final of the 400m at the 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games, West Australian one-lap specialist John Steffensen was ranked 17^th in the world, and 9^th in the Commonwealth.

Just over a month prior to the Games, Steffensen set a PB time of 45.14 at the national championships, yet it would take his best effort to make the dias in Melbourne.

With a PB in the semi-final of 45.05 seconds, Steffensen hit a rich vein of form at exactly the right time and faced young Bahamian Chris Brown (who would go on to win four Olympic relay medals as well as individual indoor world championship medals), Grenada’s Alleyne Francique (two-time 400m indoor world champion), Jamaican duo Davian Clarke and Lansford Winston Spence, Great Britain's Robert Tobin and Botswana’s California Molefe in the final, all of whom held faster PB times than Steffensen.

But the rankings didn’t faze Steffensen, who shone in the spotlight like no-one else and produced a scintillating run of 44.73 seconds to bag gold in front of a packed MCG. Later in the athletics programme, Steffensen doubled up to take gold in the men’s 400m relay with teammates Chris Troode, Mark Ormrod and Clinton Hill.

Buster takes it up to the Kenyans

While he may not have walked home with the gold medal around his neck, few Australian athletics fans will ever forget the inspiring grit and determination shown by Craig Mottram in the men’s 5000m at the Melbourne 2006 Games.

For the most part of 10 laps, Mottram put himself in the middle of a Kenyan trio of runners including Augustine Choge, Benjamin Limo and Joseph Ebuya. With two laps remaining, Mottram and Choge kicked clear to battle the remaining race alone.

An ear-deafening cheer followed the pair around the MCG before Choge exploded in the final 200m to win in a massive Games record of 12:56.41 with Mottram less than 2 seconds behind in silver.

Bronwyn Thompson flies in Melbourne

Two years after heartbreakingly missing out on an Olympic medal by one place, former Australian long jump record holder Bronwyn Thompson faced up to the 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games in strong form.

Having set the national record in 2002, Thompson’s 2005/2006 campaign was looking to be her strongest yet. Undefeated in Australia for the past 14 competitions, Thompson was the hot favourite heading into her home games.

After a first attempt foul, Thompson asserted her dominance early by leaping 6.97m in her second attempt to safely secure gold for Australia in a games record-breaking performance.

Australian teammate Kerrie Taurima’s fifth attempt of 6.57m snared her the silver medal.

Who is this Steve Hooker bloke?

Fans inside the MCG will likely recall a little-known red-headed 23-year-old Aussie by the name of Steve Hooker who produced a dominant pole vault performance at the 2006 Commonwealth Games.

In his first major international competition, Hooker impressed his home-town crowd with three faultless jumps at 5.60m, 5.70m and 5.80m.

That’s all it took to snare the gold medal in front of Australian teammate Dmitri Markov and signalled the start of what would be a world-dominating career by Hooker that included world championships (indoor and outdoor) and Olympic gold.